


A Shot In The Dark

by FBIEpidemic



Category: Mad Men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2018-11-16
Packaged: 2019-08-24 13:33:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16641119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FBIEpidemic/pseuds/FBIEpidemic
Summary: Peggy is pissed because she has to watch Don. Sally is pissed because her father is a bastard. They're both not ready to stop being pissed. Not even a near-death experience could make them want to lose their least favorite person





	A Shot In The Dark

Peggy is pissed. She’s raving mad.

She is important. Good. Valuable. Yet, here she is staring at the back on Donald Draper’s head because she has to make sure he obeys the rules set by the other partners. Because no matter how valuable and good she is, he’s better. 

The thing is, she’s not sure what pisses her off the most. The fact that her former mentor seems to have dug himself into an emotional ditch or the fact that she missed him. She missed the son of a bitch that she thought she convinced herself she hated. 

“First rounds on me,” Don says, his eyes landing on her for a second too long. 

The boy’s cheer, excited at their win, the business, and the promise of free alcohol. 

She can not escape Don Draper. 

By the time the boys had taken Don up on his free round, she’s drowned down three Whiskey Sours and wasn’t paying attention to them. “I’m heading back to the hotel.”

If she had been, she would have seen Don tipping his own hat on his head, his coat already on. His voice comes off approving and deep,” good. I’ll go with you. You shouldn’t walk by yourself.”

Taking a cab would be dumb, the hotel is only six blocks away and she knows she’s damned now. There is no way to decline his offer without looking like a complete bitch.

“Girls like Peggy? Please, no one is going to mess with her. No one.” 

The Whiskey Sours have cooled her off, otherwise, she might have snapped at that comment. They’re right though, men don’t really mess with her like that. 

By the time she’s got her own coat on, Don’s got a cigarette bobbing between his lips and waiting patiently for her to come through the door he’s propped open with his shoulder. She almost stops to wait for him once’s she’s stepped out but she doesn’t. Somehow, he still ends up right beside her.

“Give me your money!” 

Peggy immiediatly takes a step back but Don steps forward, his chest coming closer to the end of the shaking barrel. She can see that the holder is a young man, the hood of his sweatshirt can’t obscure that from her. For a moment, she wonders what’s going through Don’s brain if her’s is caught up on the youth of the boy.

She finds out when Don takes a side step and cast her in his cold shadow. “I’m reaching for my wallet,” his soothing voice is steady and calm as she watches him fish for his wallet. She almost doesn’t recognize his advertising voice. 

“I-I want the girl’s too!” The gun wavers but Don moves with it. 

Once again his voice comes out smooth and calm,” alright. Peggy?”

Her own trembling hands clumsily pull her purse away from her body but the contents spill over the pavement. It makes them all jump and the boy lets out a startled cry. 

Don reaches back for her and the sight of his leather gloved hand is the only thing her mind focuses on as the shot rings out. 

It all happens at once. The boy jerks back and Don tumbles backward onto her. The sharp sting running over body makes her heart pound. She’s been shot!

The boy stands over them for a moment. His hands-free of the gun as he puts them up to his head,” oh fuck! Of shit!” In one quick moment, he looks them over and scoops up everything he can before running off into the night.

“Peggy?” The smooth, fast-talking, man on his feet doesn’t sound that sure of himself. The man who peered at her from her hospital bed and told her that she would be surprised by how much her kid didn’t happen, he’s not the man saying her name. 

She seats up. There’s no blood on her blouse. What the hell?

She glances to her left and in the low glint of the street light, his long fingers tremble with his crimson blood all over the tips. He holds his hand only an inch above his chest and she knows that it wasn’t her that caught the bullet.

“Why the hell did you do that!” She sits up and even though blood rushes too fast to her head and makes her sway with lightheadedness. She jerks her jacket off, the anger from the early back and she’s feeling too much to try to push it away.

She presses her jacket against the wound, not relieving pressure when he grunts and moves under her. “Goddammit! Help! I need help!”

He groans as she tugs his handkerchief from his breast pocket and stacks that on his chest too. “Fuck! This is all my fault.” She doesn’t mean for that to slip out but it’s a high stakes moment and she has no control over her mouth. 

The worse part is that she means it. There are so many ‘ifs’ that blow through her mind. Most of them going back to a year ago when she told him that she was leaving. Maybe she shouldn’t have, even if she rationally knows she had to.

“Don’t blame yourself, sweetheart.” Don’s chest shakes as he coughs up the blood clogging his throat. “I knew what I was doing.” Already, he sounds weaker.

Peggy ignores his comment, looking around in the dark. Half convinced she looks down at him,” someone will come. You’ll be fine.” Even as she thinks about her father dying in front of her and the way that Don’s already too pale and shaky. 

He calls her name again, weaker this time and puts his larger hand on top of hers. It’s cold. Don’s never cold to the touch. He’s always too warm. His fingers clinch hers but it’s a weak, clammy grip. “I’m sorry, Peggy-”

She shakes her head,” Don-”

He coughs again, this time blood runs slow and thick down his jaw. “Watch after Sally, please, Peggy. She’s too much like me… I’ve already messed it all up-” He jerks a little, more blood trickle down his jaw. His coughs, this time, are so weak they hardly dispell the blood from his airway. 

He wheezes weakly.

“You’re going to be fine.” She realizes that now she’s holding his hand as his eyes filled with panic. “Someone’s going to come. You’re going to be fine.”

He smiles at her, weakly, it hardly pulls up the sides of his mouth and his eyes slide shut. 

 

Sally can remember when Grandma Pauline looked at her in that demeaning way, shaking her head and pointing her finger accusingly, and mumbled, just low enough to her mother and Henry wouldn’t hear “you take after your father”. Which was Grandma Pauline’s way of saying _you’ve got the Devin you._

She already knew that, though. She knew it the first time she truly observed her father. 

He was seated on the armchair in their living room before he and her mother divorced. They have been fighting through. She left. Leaving him to sit in the silence that he had artificially created.

On the armchair, he sat staring at the nothingness of the wall. In his hand, the Old Fashioned that he let her make. When she handed it to him, she waited patiently for him to take a sip. He didn’t even thank her. It was the sight of him, so caught up in his thought that he was hardly there at all, that made her realize she taken after him. More than Bobby ever could. More than her mother ever wished she had. 

She also knows, now and then a couple years after that incident, that being like him was what tore them apart the most. 

It can’t, though, explain the icy nothing she feels as Peggy tells her that her father was admitted into a hospital not even a thirty-minute walk away. Or even the obscure panic she feels when she’s retold by her mother that her father might not make it. 

Because damn him! He doesn’t just get to die. That’s too easy.

Or, maybe not. 

Sally stands just outside of her father’s hospital room. The doctor’s words ring in her head. They think he’s given up. From the looks of it, all of the machines that snake around his head, chest, and arms, he might have. Who is she to judge, though? She’s a coward too.

“You haven’t been in to see him.” The accusing voice of Roger Sterling halts her thoughts and she looks up at the white-haired man. 

She crosses her arms, eyeballing the coffee in his hands,” neither have you.”

He offers her the cup and she doesn't think twice about drinking after him. He shakes his head when she tries to hand it back,” I’ve already had three. They’re my excuse not to go in.” Roger glances down at her and then back through the little window that lets them see her father without being in there. “You know, you look more like him every day.”

She brings her lips to the lid of the cup,” what is it about men that makes them think that telling a girl that she looks like her father is a compliment?” She glances at Roger out of the corner of her eye and she knows that her sharp humor has not been lost on her.

He puts a hand on her shoulder,” you’re just like him, you know that?”

She nods solemnly, eyes coming to rest on the dirty white lid of the cup. How could she not know? “Nobody will let me forget.” She smiles at Roger, wondering how this all must feel to Roger. If she’s losing a father, Peggy is losing her mentor, what does that leave Roger to lose?

Roger nods and sets his eyes back to the window,” I’m going in. If-If you want to…”

Sally shakes her head. Instead, she watches from the window. She can hear Roger’s deep voice mumbling something at her father, the words are lost to her. 

To allow all of them equal access to him, it was Sally that lied to the nurses. Peggy is her older sister, a child from another marriage and Roger is her grandfather. Their ages made her look like a lair but Sally played her part well. When Roger came in she ran to him and hugged him tightly, loving the shocked look he gave her when she called him ‘grandpa’. 

After it was cleared up, Roger winked at her and kissed her forehead, calling her a genius. 

“You still haven’t gone in.” Peggy comes up behind her, soundlessly. Roger came bearing a clean set of clothes for Peggy so that she might change out of the blood splattered skirt and blouse. It appears, from the bit of Peggy’s sleeve that Sally can see, that the older woman has changed. “Thank you for lying to the nurses, you didn’t have to do that.”

Sally doesn’t tear her eyes from her father but she nods,” sure I did.” She smiles, glances to the right,” you’re family, right? Plus, Roger would have found a way in any way. It’s better to lie than let him sleep with half the nurses.”

Peggy smiles,” you say that like he won’t try anyway.”

They step back quickly as Roger pulls the door open. He smiles, poorly, at Peggy and pulls her into a hug,” you holding up kiddo?”

She chuckles,” I just watched my old mentor get shot. Then I had to call his ex-wife and kid to tell them. So, maybe not so hot.”

Roger winks at both of them,” you’ll all be fine. All three of you, yah hear? Can’t keep a good man down.”

Sally doubts this but nods anyway. 

She’s been doing that a lot since Peggy called. Smiling, agreeing, but not meaning it. 

“Wanna go in?” Roger motions with his head to the room. Sally almost says no because she wants to say no. She wants to say no and mean it. Either way, she still frowns and nods her head. Looking back at both Roger and Peggy, hoping one of them stops her, and steps into the room.

The smell of antibacterial soap stings her nose. There’s no reason for her to be used to the scent. She’s never had to be in a hospital. In fact, she can only think of one time she’s ever been in one. And that seems like such a distant memory that it doesn't seem reliable.

“You look awful,” she speaks softly, more to herself than to him. She doesn’t edge closer to the bed, instead opting to stand at the end a good arm's length away. “Really.”

She bites her lip, trying to think of a time when she’s ever even seen him sleep. She can only recall once, that doesn’t technically count, that she’s ever been close to him while he was asleep. She was small. Tiny, really. She still had one of those toddler beds and he came into her room.

She can remember that he smelt like stale cigarettes, he was trying to give them up to make a point to her mother. This was before her mother starting smoking them too. The point is still lost on her.

He came in and sat on the edge of the bed. She was hardly awake and so she didn’t think twice about shuffling on her bed until she could curl herself on his lap. She ended up tangling them both up in bed sheets but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he talked softly to her, running his rough fingers through her hair. 

She lost time between then and when she woke up. It could have been hours or maybe just five minutes but she woke up to a soft snore coming from behind her. She didn’t sit up in the bed, his heavy arm draped over her chest kept her from being afraid but she still wondered how he got them untangled from the sheets. 

Now she wonders how he got his long body into that bed with her.

“Mom,” Sally jumps as the door opens but she smiles when she sees her mother leading Bobby and Gene into the room. “I didn’t think you’d be here so soon.”

Her mother smiles but moves past her and to her father’s bedside. Her mother seems unaffected by the tube sticking out of her father’s throat. She just brings her face closer to his and gently touches his lips. 

Sally hadn’t noticed but his mouth was contorted around the tube, stretched and mutilated to fit around the tube and pulled taut by tape. It looked painful and for the first time since she came into the room, she really thought about him. About losing him. 

“Sally can you-?” Her mother pulls away from him, her hand coming to hold him tightly.

Sally looks at her brothers. Bobby is holding Gene to his chest, fear is written all over both of their faces. At the mention of her name, Bobby has turned to look at her but his fear is still evident. 

“Come on guys,” Sally offers her hand out, smiling when Gene rushes to her side. “Let’s go get some jello.” 

Reluctant and looking back, Bobby asks softly. “Is Dad gonna die?”

Sally stops. Bobby smacks into her back and Gene stumbles before righting himself. They’re in full view of the others now. Roger is peering at them oddly and Peggy has turned away from Stan to look at them questionable. 

“No,” Sally hates how emotional her voice sounds. “He won’t. He’s going to wake up and he’s going to be fine.”

She tries to say something else but her eyes are clouding with tears. She jerks her hand away from Gene and wipes her tears with the ball of her fist. 

“Hey, squirt.” Roger is making his way over fast and is picking Gene off of the ground with a wink. “Little man,” he nods to Bobby, putting a hand on the top of his head. “How about us men go get some snacks? Huh, we can get cookies.”

Over her head, Roger shakes his head and motions for Peggy to come over. 

By the time that Peggy’s arms wrap around Sally’s shoulders, she’s already sobbing. Peggy shushes her, running a hand over her hair, and placing a kiss on her forehead. “You said it yourself, he’s going to be fine. It’s going to be alright, Sally.”

 

Everything hurts. 

Don can feel the uncomfortable hospital bed under him and he can feel the cold pain of the needle in his arm but it’s all blocked out by the pounding pain in his chest. It just hurts. He tries to think, to come up with where he is and why it’s so cold. 

But his chest heaves and there’s something down his throat and all he can do is gag and writhe with pain and discomfort.

“Don!”

His body weighs a ton. He pries his eye open and for a moment he thinks he sees Peggy. She looks scared but he gags again his world is enveloped in a blanket of pain. The blurry brown and red that could be Peggy sinks into the black and he falls back under the haze of pain.

 

“Dad?” 

Since everything happened, this is the first time she’s sat down and just… But, of all the times everyone else sat, she never expected it to be her seating here when he finally woke up, for real. Peggy was here when they took the tube out so she, naturally, be here when he cracks his eyes open and glares at his side.

“Sally.”

He glares at her, confused not angered. The mask, the one that’s supposed to be helping him breathe, is clouding quickly. His breathing is labored, the doctors told her that. She can see it now, the beads of sweat pouring down his brow. He looks sick. 

“Peggy’s going to kick my ass,” she confides, trying to subtly pull her hand from his. 

He turns his head away, gasping for breath. “Shouldn’t… Where is your mother?”

She looks at their joined hands,” she left, a week ago. Bobby and Gene… They made you cards.” She tries to turn to get one of them but he doesn’t let go of her hand. So she turns back and looks to their hands. 

“Sally?” He’s fighting, she can tell. She just isn’t sure what it is that he’s fighting. “Thank you.”

Her face twitches, she can’t help it. What is he thanking her for?

“I love you, Sally.” His deep voice is lacking its rumble. The natural rumble that used to make her laugh. She would put her ear to his chest and roar with laughter at the sound. No, now he just sounds… raw.

“Dad-” she seats closer but he’s already gone. Asleep. She seats back, closing her eyes and letting out a tight breathe. “Yeah, I love you too, Dad.” After a moment, grueling and long she thinks about what she heard Peggy say the other day. She was supposed to be sleeping on the cot but she couldn't fall asleep. But she heard Peggy say, ever so softly that she forgave him. Peggy forgave her father. 

"And... And I forgive you too. For everything."

Maybe it would be nice to have him around again. Somewhere to crash when she's mad at her mother. Someone to confide in.


End file.
